The present invention relates to controlling imaging nodes and, more particularly, to methods and systems making control of imaging nodes more adaptive.
Conventionally, control over an imaging node, such as a multifunction printer (MFP) node, has been limited to largely coarse and static controls offered by industry standard management protocols and proprietary Web interfaces supported by the imaging node. These controls have often failed to meet diverse objectives of imaging node users and have been slow to change. Industry standard management protocols supported by imaging nodes, such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and Internet Printing Protocol (IPP), define a limited set of controls that cannot be supplemented without action of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Moreover, any new controls that are approved through IETF action are limited and require a software upgrade to implement. Proprietary Web interfaces to imaging nodes provide controls that can be supplemented without action by an industry standards body. However, such Web controls are limited to those that the imaging node manufacturer decides to support. Moreover, software changes are required to implement any new Web controls that might be offered. For example, new Web pages must be created to accept user inputs for new controls and software hooks must be coded to bind the new Web pages to the controlled subsystems of the imaging node.